• More than a century before Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and Muhammad Ali, a former slave named Tom Molineaux fought a boxing match whose social and cultural significance transcended sports. At the same time, writes journalist Brian Phillips, “so much about the fight feels familiar today, from the role of race to the role of the media, that if you had to name a date, you could make a good case that December 10, 1810, was the moment sport as we know it began.”

• John Turner on Samuel Brown’s In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death: “…an unusual and remarkable book… Brown offers fresh insights into a whole host of flashpoints within the study of early Mormonism: treasure-hunting, Smith’s translations of ancient texts, the endowment ceremony, and plural marriage.”

• How one general kept the Union Army from adopting repeating rifles in 1861. If not for his obstructionism, could the Civil War have ended at or before Gettysburg?

• Depicting the infamous “Rape of Nanjing” by Japanese soldiers in 1937, The Flowers of War (starring Christian Bale) didn’t get a Best Foreign Language Film nod from the Oscars, but it was China’s highest grossing film last year. (H/T Historical Society Blog)

• Of the sixteen women who served in the 84th U.S. Congress (still, believe it or not, the highest number), none was more fascinating than Koya Knutson. Gilbert King tells the remarkable story of this representative from Minnesota’s then-9th district who struggled with the Democratic establishment and endured physical abuse from her alcoholic husband. (This is actually from the very end of 2011, but it’s too good not to pass along.)